The present invention generally relates to methods for diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, compositions useful therefore and therapeutic methods for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.
Pancreatic cancer is a cancer type which is difficult to diagnose and to control and most of such cancers can grow very rapidly.
Neoplasms of the exocrine pancreas may arise from ductal, acinar and stromal cells. Eighty percent of pancreatic carcinomas are derived from ductal epithelium. 60% of these tumors are located in the head of the pancreas, 10% in the tail and 30% are located in the body of the pancreas or are diffuse (Warshau, A. L., and Fernandez-del, C. C., N. Engl. J. Med. 326 (1992) 4555-4565). Histologically, these tumors are graded as well as differentiated, moderately differentiated and poorly differentiated. Some tumors are classified as adenosquamous, mucinous, undifferentiated or undifferentiated with osteoblast-like giant cells (Gibson, J. B., and Sobin, L. H., Histological typing of tumors of the liver, biliary tract and pancreas, WHO, Geneva, 1978). Since the disease is asymptomatic in its early stages, because of the lack of any test for early diagnosis and due to its aggressive character with respect to metastasis locally and to visceral organs, this disease is associated with a dismal prognosis. Only 20% of the tumors are resectable and the survival benefit of approved chemotherapy regiments is rather poor (Kroep, J. R., et al., Ann. Oncol. 10, Suppl. 4 (1999) 234-238). Identification of new targets for early diagnosis of pancreatic tumors is therefore a challenge of paramount importance.
WO 02/08288 describes secreted and transmembrane polypeptides and nucleic acids encoding the same. FIG. 130 shows the polypeptide sequence of UKW.